Wednesday, May 24, 2017

NATO: GLOBAL HEGEMONY IN THE GUISE OF “COLLECTIVE DEFENSE”

It was not long ago that
another ambitious power cited Russia as a threat and invoked “collective
defense” to justify what would become a contest between nations leaving tens of
millions dead and entire countries in ruins. Nazi Germany’s leader, Adolf Hitler
would claim regarding his decision to invade Russia that:

The purpose of this front
is no longer the protection of the individual nations, but rather the safety of
Europe, and therefore the salvation of everyone.

I have therefore decided
today once again to put the fate of Germany and the future of the German Reich
and our people in the hands of our soldiers.

Sounding eerily familiar
are US and NATO justifications for their continued expansion east and
escalations made against Russia today. And also like that other ambitious
power, the United States has waged wars all across the planet, far from
Russia’s borders and with little to do with Russia’s interests beyond its
borders, long before it turned its sights on Moscow.

Since World War II, the
United States has invaded, bombed, and/or occupied the Korean Peninsula,
Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Somalia, Lebanon, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya, and Syria. Some of these nations have been attacked by the US more than
once. In many more countries the US has facilitated the violent overthrow of
various governments, particularly in South America and the Middle East, first
through the use of its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), then through more
veiled organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). It has
troops stationed in over a hundred nations around the world, occupying hundreds
of military installations.

Its NATO alliance openly
seeks to expand. A look at the map of NATO expansion over the past several
decades after its creation shows it clearly encroaching upon and encircling
Russia – violently overthrowing many of the nations along Russia’s borders with
backed uprisings like those seen most recently in Ukraine.

In fact, the
previous uprising in Ukraine, the “Orange Revolution,” was admittedly the work
of the US. The Guardian would admit in its 2004 article, “US campaign behind
the turmoil in Kiev,” that:

…while the gains of the
orange-bedecked “chestnut revolution” are Ukraine’s, the campaign is an
American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in
western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has
been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.

Funded and organised by
the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two
big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was
first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the
ballot box.

More recently, the US
State Department’s Victoria Nuland was recorded talking with the US Ambassador
to Ukraine, literally handpicking the regime that would take the place of the
government they helped overthrow.

Just recently, the New
York Times admits that the West is intentionally rigging global oil prices to
undermine Russia. Such provocations are not the work of nations seeking peace
or to deescalate tensions, but insidious provocations meant to continue to goad
perceived enemies into reacting so as to then disingenuously cite additional
“threats” that require additional “collective defense.” And so, over the cliff
such interests lead the entire Western World.

This is Called
“Imperialism”

Historically, a nation
maintaining such a posture is known as an “imperialist.” Imperialists maintain
a variety of tricks to make their aspirations for global hegemony appear as a
series of reluctant moves made in its own defense, or the defense of others.

The United States in
particular has refined this strategy to include the “defense of democracy”
around the world, intervening where it claims there are deficiencies. Even as
it claims Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine, it has not only claimed the need
to back mobs in Kiev earlier in the overthrow of an already elected government
for the sake of “democracy,” it also claims the Moscow itself suffers from a
deficit of democracy – meaning that the destabilization and chaos the US has
unleashed in Ukraine will eventually be visited upon Russia. Russia,
apparently, is expected to simply wait until that happens.

Not surprisingly, Russia has
instead decided to defend itself.

Historians would remind
the people of present the final outcome of Adolf Hitler’s use of “collective
defense” to invade its neighbor to the east. The war would cost tens of
millions their lives and Germany itself would be decimated and divided for
decades afterward, undertaking a painful process of reconstruction,
reconciliation, and retribution for the crimes it had committed against
humanity.

For the German people
themselves, they paid the highest price for the crimes of but a handful of
special interests. Some of those special interests, particularly the Nazi
Party, were liquidated entirely. Others, including bankers and industrialists
who empowered and enriched themselves during the rule of the Nazis – including
many American companies – escaped with absolute impunity and are to this day
profiteering from new wars they tacitly support from the background through
“think tanks” they fund producing policy papers that eventually transform into
bills, declarations of war, and talking points featured on the nightly news.

History needs not repeat
itself. People can just as easily reject arguments made for “collective
defense” as such arguments are made. NATO will not fight a war without
soldiers. Already in its proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, it has found few
willing to subject themselves as pawns in this game. Ukrainians are ironically
seeking shelter in Russia, not from “Kremlin backed rebels,” but from
recruiters in Kiev seeking more young men to feed into a war of aggression
precipitated by foreign interests. By simply spreading the word the trenches
are dug that tangle the treads of this machine as it creeps forward.

assange

At midday on Friday 5 February, 2016 Julian Assange, John Jones QC, Melinda Taylor, Jennifer Robinson and Baltasar Garzon will be speaking at a press conference at the Frontline Club on the decision made by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on the Assange case.